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Author Topic: Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?  (Read 7959 times)

Sutopia

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Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?
« on: June 05, 2018, 10:31:06 AM »

This suggestion is based on 0.9 in-dev patch note

I'm seeing player faction factory can accidentally make ships with D-mods.
Contrarily, is there by any chance we can gain some kind of perk or buff hull mod when manufacturing ships?
This kind of things do happen in modern lab, some guy "accidentally" made a very well-done sample that can never get reproduced in the following dozens of tries. There can be a low chance product ships receiving a buffing hull mod. Of course, the chance is increased if the faction's industry level increase.

Some possible buffing hull mods:

fine architecture: increase armor rating by 5%
high quality emitter: decrease shield upkeep flux by 10%
perfect geometry field: decrease fuel consumption by 10%
...and so on

The general idea is that they can only be minor buffs but do bring surprise and fun for players.
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Thaago

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Re: Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?
« Reply #1 on: June 05, 2018, 03:52:46 PM »

I think this would not work because it heavily encourages the player to select for these ships, "rolling the dice" over an over again to get more powerful ships in the market. Sounds really grindy to me.
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SafariJohn

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Re: Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?
« Reply #2 on: June 05, 2018, 04:33:51 PM »

I could maybe see something like this as upgrade items you can find. So you find your "High Quality Emitter Doodad Design" and slot it into your heavy industry at a world, then all ships from there get that boost. But you can only have X number of these upgrades installed at a time.
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Thaago

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Re: Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?
« Reply #3 on: June 05, 2018, 04:41:42 PM »

That could potentially be fun - it rewards exploration rather than just clicking. The ITU currently plays that role - its governed by rarity but otherwise just a bonus to all ships.
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King Alfonzo

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Re: Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?
« Reply #4 on: June 05, 2018, 05:13:24 PM »

More amusingly, the possible improvement doodad is offset by the fact that D-mods are more likely, offsetting possible player manipulation.

Techhead

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Re: Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?
« Reply #5 on: June 05, 2018, 08:22:06 PM »

I think the paradigm Alex is going for is, "0 D-mods: You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like." Anything past that is in the skills of captains and officers.

More amusingly, the possible improvement doodad is offset by the fact that D-mods are more likely, offsetting possible player manipulation.
Skinner Box 101: Requiring more die rolls for the result you want will not make players roll dice less often.
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TaLaR

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Re: Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?
« Reply #6 on: June 05, 2018, 08:57:42 PM »

More amusingly, the possible improvement doodad is offset by the fact that D-mods are more likely, offsetting possible player manipulation.

You can always remove D-mods by restoration, it's not a problem late game when you are swimming in money.
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Megas

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Re: Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?
« Reply #7 on: June 06, 2018, 05:59:25 AM »

This could be represented by a special hullmod, similar to (A) and (XIV) mods Hegemony uses, but designed for the player faction if he gets a lucky treasure find.  Any random part would be what hullmod is gained.  The hullmod itself should not give random buffs.

Although if (XIV) ships are separate blueprint than standard ship blueprints, that means the ship blueprint would need to be modded, similar to magic weapons in D&D (e.g., sword +3).  Since Starsector is a single-player game with limited worlds to plunder, such a magic item paradigm can work.  It would be problematic and grinding in an unlimited online multiplayer dungeon where player can grind and farm items from bosses or levels, then trade those items for gain.  (Then you would have the world with dupes to trade clamouring for perfect items like "Windforce with +8% mana leech".)
« Last Edit: June 06, 2018, 06:01:00 AM by Megas »
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Sutopia

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Re: Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?
« Reply #8 on: June 06, 2018, 06:25:20 AM »

I think this would not work because it heavily encourages the player to select for these ships, "rolling the dice" over an over again to get more powerful ships in the market. Sounds really grindy to me.
I think Alex somehow made some "pregeneration" before any incident happens, i.e. you're not really able to S/L things you want because some of the incidents are pre-determined quite a time before it actually happens.
Additionally, I said the buffs are rare and minor, much less than what you get from standard hull mods or such, indicating it might not worth the time to actually roll the dice enough amount of times for the one you WANT.
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Megas

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Re: Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?
« Reply #9 on: June 06, 2018, 06:30:00 AM »

I depends when results are locked in.  If it locked-in only up a week in game time, player simply reloads the game at that moment, and attempts take longer.  I did this with boarding when Alex implemented that.  Instead of saving next to the enemy fleet to save scum, I saved at Jangala or other convenient base and traveled to the bounty.  It meant attempts took longer, but it was still the only practical way of boarding and acquiring rare ships.
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Sutopia

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Re: Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?
« Reply #10 on: June 06, 2018, 06:37:17 AM »

I depends when results are locked in.  If it locked-in only up a week in game time, player simply reloads the game at that moment, and attempts take longer.  I did this with boarding when Alex implemented that.  Instead of saving next to the enemy fleet to save scum, I saved at Jangala or other convenient base and traveled to the bounty.  It meant attempts took longer, but it was still the only practical way of boarding and acquiring rare ships.
That's basically when you know what you're up to.
Ship production is a fixed period incident which indicates if the pre-gen was made a period ago there is no point doing any save scum.
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Thaago

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Re: Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?
« Reply #11 on: June 06, 2018, 07:18:22 AM »

This could be represented by a special hullmod, similar to (A) and (XIV) mods Hegemony uses, but designed for the player faction if he gets a lucky treasure find.  Any random part would be what hullmod is gained.  The hullmod itself should not give random buffs.

Although if (XIV) ships are separate blueprint than standard ship blueprints, that means the ship blueprint would need to be modded, similar to magic weapons in D&D (e.g., sword +3).  Since Starsector is a single-player game with limited worlds to plunder, such a magic item paradigm can work.  It would be problematic and grinding in an unlimited online multiplayer dungeon where player can grind and farm items from bosses or levels, then trade those items for gain.  (Then you would have the world with dupes to trade clamouring for perfect items like "Windforce with +8% mana leech".)


How about this:
There is a blueprint slot and a mod slot in the autofactory, so the player can only pick 1 mod at a time to apply (if they've found more than 1 by luck). There should also be a downside, probably cost/resources/time required, or the player needs to find a super special autofactory. Like say from killing and salvaging with max ranks a Remnant battlestation. Or these could be awarded as the 'capstone' for a faction's questline (if those exist). Become so super high up in the Hegemony that you are essentially its savior? They award you with the super secret autofactory mod that allows you to construct (XIV) ships.

No RNG grinding, but as part of the progression of the game - some elite perk to strive for.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2018, 07:20:11 AM by Thaago »
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Sutopia

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Re: Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?
« Reply #12 on: June 06, 2018, 07:36:47 AM »

This could be represented by a special hullmod, similar to (A) and (XIV) mods Hegemony uses, but designed for the player faction if he gets a lucky treasure find.  Any random part would be what hullmod is gained.  The hullmod itself should not give random buffs.

Although if (XIV) ships are separate blueprint than standard ship blueprints, that means the ship blueprint would need to be modded, similar to magic weapons in D&D (e.g., sword +3).  Since Starsector is a single-player game with limited worlds to plunder, such a magic item paradigm can work.  It would be problematic and grinding in an unlimited online multiplayer dungeon where player can grind and farm items from bosses or levels, then trade those items for gain.  (Then you would have the world with dupes to trade clamouring for perfect items like "Windforce with +8% mana leech".)


How about this:
There is a blueprint slot and a mod slot in the autofactory, so the player can only pick 1 mod at a time to apply (if they've found more than 1 by luck). There should also be a downside, probably cost/resources/time required, or the player needs to find a super special autofactory. Like say from killing and salvaging with max ranks a Remnant battlestation. Or these could be awarded as the 'capstone' for a faction's questline (if those exist). Become so super high up in the Hegemony that you are essentially its savior? They award you with the super secret autofactory mod that allows you to construct (XIV) ships.

No RNG grinding, but as part of the progression of the game - some elite perk to strive for.

"To find one" is enough to make player do RNG roll grind.
As my OP stated it should NOT be a part of standard progression, either should it be always available after certain RNG incident else it's just another ITU.
It should be a constantly rolling process at every cycle of ship gen thus making there always "something" you can get "surprised".
By background locking the "prize" for 1 or 2 period beforehand is easy enough to block any possible save scum for "good" ships.
TBH I hate how ITU is like now and I believe I saw Alex mentioned somewhere this will be "fixed" in 0.9.
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Megas

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Re: Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?
« Reply #13 on: June 06, 2018, 07:52:28 AM »

Not if the treasure is rolled up at world creation and seeded on random fringe worlds.  In which case, reloading does not work.  Having rare treasure randomized when found would encourage scumming as you say.  And if treasure is sufficiently rare and random, such treasure is not guaranteed, and player will not know until he visits every system.

ITU is annoying, but tolerable since many ships use it and will drop one eventually (although it could be better, no objection there).  What is more annoying are rare hullmods that are not used much, like IPDAI, Advanced Optics, and various shield hullmods, and you need to join Tri-Tachyon (or Persean League in case of Augmented Drive Field) to get them, unless you are lucky enough to find a bounty you can save-scum at (although given how rare Tachyon Lance and Mjolnir are, I probably would keep the results if I got max weapon drop instead of the rare hullmod).

That said, I favor cruisers because they are the smallest ship that can use DTC.  ITU drop is simply an endgame thing that happens after enough grinding.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2018, 07:54:01 AM by Megas »
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Sutopia

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Re: Randomly buff hull mod on built ships?
« Reply #14 on: June 06, 2018, 09:32:15 AM »

Not if the treasure is rolled up at world creation and seeded on random fringe worlds.  


Heck then there'll be a thread "Share your world seed generating XXX hull mod", no thanks.

Just correct me if I'm wrong: players LOVE RNGesus.
Unpredictability is fascinating, it always has been.
In current system the closest play is ITU, but it's not repeatable, thus cannot retain the excitement.
Any D-mod is removable given enough money, so to be honest, it cannot really make your ship feel "unique" when near end-game since you'll be sitting on everything "gained in some kind of predictable process/progress". It's not like "Material Brave - Ignition-" having ridiculous amount of droppable items for player to "discover" and play with. Thus, making RNG plays on ship building cycle is my best bet, if any, liven up the game a bit.
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